Tyre pressure plays a huge role in the safety, efficiency, and comfort of your drive — and one of the easiest ways to maintain it is by using a tyre inflator at your local fuel station. Whether you’re topping up air, removing excess pressure, or checking all four tyres for balance, this guide explains how to use a fuel station inflator safely and effectively, plus what to do if your tyres keep losing pressure.
A big part of effective tyre maintenance involves keeping the pressure of tyres consistent and balanced. Not only does the pressure need to be balanced across all four tyres on a car or vehicle, but it needs to compliment the weight being carried in the vehicle, the number of passengers, and the type of terrain you’re driving on.
Suffice to say, heading to the fuel station and filling up your tyres with more gas is not necessarily as easy as it sounds.
What Does a Tyre Inflator Do?
Tyre inflators, found across countless fuel stations in the UK, are designed to do two main jobs.
The first is to add more gas to tyres. The second is to remove gas. Both of these actions empower drivers to optimise the pressure within their tyres, ensuring safe handling and a comfortable ride depending on their number of passengers and the road surface they’re driving on.
How Does the Inflator / Deflator Work?
When you pull up to a tyre inflator, also known as a pressure or gas pump, you first need to set the machine to your ideal pressure. This means opening the driver door of your vehicle and reading the PSI or Bar rating, depending on the vehicle you’re driving and your passenger load.
Once you’ve identified this reading, input the correct PSI / Bar into the machine. This sets the nozzle and machine to read how much pressure is inside each tyre and adjust it accordingly, either inflating or deflating the tyre as required.
To do this, the nozzle on the machine needs to be fixed to each tyre valve, one at a time. The machine will always tell you the initial reading before it uses the inflating or deflating function to change the pressure rating.
Why Might I Need to Remove Air From My Tyres?
You might be wondering how high the chances are of needing to remove air from tyres / use the deflating option.
This really comes down to safety on the road. When tyres have got too much air in them, they become more fragile – and more likely to suffer damage or even a blowout if they hit a pothole or obstacle on the road.
What’s more, tyres that have too much air in them result in a bumpier ride for the driver and passengers. This impact on comfort, combined with the negative effect on road safety, means that removing air is often just as important as adding more air.
Finding the Tyre Valve for Air Pressure
A quick inspection of each tyre on your vehicle will highlight the tyre valve – a small stick with a cap on it. To add or remove air using a fuel station tyre inflator, simply attach the nozzle from the machine onto each valve and let it first read and current tyre pressure and then adjust it as necessary.
It’s as simple as that!
